Nexus: Unified Productivity & Communication Platform
Nexus: Unified Productivity & Communication Platform
An independent product that pulls email from Microsoft 365, Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo, iCloud and AOL into one place and sorts it into action lists such as Needs a reply and Waiting on them, built on Cloudflare Workers, D1 and R2.
01Executive summary
Nexus is a product I am building on my own time. Its tagline, “Everything that needs you. One place.”, is the whole idea: instead of five inboxes and a to-do app, one view that shows what is waiting on you, what you are waiting on, and what you promised.
It connects the major mail providers, sorts messages with plain rules first and learned behaviour second, keeps AI optional and off by default, and is designed so that email content is not stored. Family and work spaces extend it to calendars, chores, bills, Planner and helpdesk-style views.
02Disciplines & technologies
Disciplines
Technologies
03The problem
People who run a household and a job end up with several inboxes and no single answer to “what needs me today?”. Existing clients are good at showing mail and bad at showing obligations: the reply you owe, the answer you are waiting on, the thing you said you would do.
Most tools that try to fix this either want to read and store all your email, or lean on AI to guess. I wanted something predictable first, private by default, and useful without AI switched on.
04Environment & complexity
Technical complexity
- Six providers with different auth models: OAuth, Microsoft Graph, app passwords
- Microsoft 365 work tenants needing admin consent
- Serverless runtime with execution and storage limits
- Sync across desktop apps, PWA and web
- Multi-person family accounts, including kids
Design constraints
- Do not store email content
- Keep only a short, expiring index
- Disconnecting must delete data and tokens
- AI must be optional and off by default
- No ads, no tracking
05My contributions
- Product concept, scope and user experience
- Backend on Cloudflare Workers with D1 and R2
- Provider integrations via OAuth, Microsoft Graph and app passwords
- Rules-first sorting model and learned behaviour from user actions
- Privacy model: short index, expiry, deletion on disconnect, export and delete from profile
- Desktop app builds and PWA delivery
- Public website, help and pricing pages
06Architecture & product design
How sorting works
Feature status
| Capability | Status |
|---|---|
| Unified inbox across M365, Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo, iCloud, AOL | Described on site |
| Action lists: Needs a reply, Waiting on them, Promised, Flagged, FYI, Promotions | Described on site |
| Rules-first sorting with learning from user moves | Described on site |
| Optional AI, off by default, bring-your-own AI account | Described on site |
| Privacy: no stored email bodies, 60-day short index, disconnect deletes index and token | Described on site |
| Family space: calendars, chores, shared lists, bills, kid sign-in | Described on site |
| Work space for M365: Planner, team week, clients, helpdesk | Described on site |
| Windows and Mac desktop apps (v0.2.0) and PWA | Published downloads |
| Commercial adoption, user counts, revenue | Not claimed |
07Challenges & decisions
Rules before AI
Rules are predictable and explainable. AI is a layer users can add, not a dependency the product needs to work.
Index, not archive
Storing only sender, subject, times and a short preview for a limited window keeps the product useful while keeping the data footprint small.
Edge-first backend
Workers, D1 and R2 keep the backend close to users with no servers to patch, at the cost of working inside platform limits.
One product, three spaces
Personal, family and work share the same core so features built once serve all three.
08Outcomes
- Verified
Public website live at yournex.us with help, pricing and MSP pages.
- Verified
Windows and Mac desktop builds published (v0.2.0) alongside a PWA.
- Pending verification
Feature-by-feature production readiness is pending verification against the current build.
- Not documented
No commercial adoption, user counts or revenue are claimed.
09Lessons & capabilities
- Auth is the product: every provider is its own project
- Privacy promises have to be designed into the data model, not added later
- Serverless limits shape architecture early
- Shipping a small version teaches more than planning a large one